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Thirteen unlucky holiday scams

Currency cons Unscrupulous cashiers in banks or bureaus de change adopt suspect counting methods when handing over money to foreigners. With irregular pauses they miss out numbers in the countback in the hope that the tourist is not concentrating or does not understand. Another scam is to give someone the wrong currency when exchanging money - for example, Czech koruna (50 to £1) instead of Polish zloty (six to £1) - or confuse them with one zero too few (think Turkish lira). More often than not, the tourist will fail to notice. Tip: Find out about the currency and exchange rate before leaving (www.xe.com
), pay attention to those zeros and insist on counting back your money in front of the cashier.